‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#181

Post by SkittyDog » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 5:47 AM UTC

cedilla wrote: post #120

SkittyDog wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the WP article, under "Folklore and Mythology": "Some Greek astronomers considered them to be a distinct constellation , and they are mentioned by Hesiod's Works and Day..." (emphasis mine) So it would appear that they are both. FWIW, I have no idea if there is some astronomical technical jargon distinction between "constellation" and "cluster" that inspires your comment. But to this layman, your correction come…

There is a difference: a constellation is an area of the sky where some stars appear to belong together to form an image. Their actual distance may be vast. A cluster on the other hand actually is a group of stars that formed from the same material and are thus very close to each other. So there is a difference, but it's only a problem to interchange the terms the other way round.

While I'm glad to be educated about the technical definition, it's still not even remotely relevant. The point is to whether the commonplace usage is worthy of correction... In this case, the correction adds nothing of value to the discussion. It struck me as a rude, self-aggrandizing gesture by an adult who should know better.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#182

Post by antonvs » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 6:41 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #114

tiagod wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pleiades are a cluster, not a constellation.

What is the difference?

A cluster is a collection of stars that are relatively close to each other in space, and bound together as a group by each other's gravity.

For example, the Pleiades has a core radius of only about 8 light years, and almost all of the 1,000+ stars in the cluster are within a volume of radius 43 light years.

A constellation is a two-dimensional region of the sky, more like counties or states on a map. The "celestial sphere" is divided into 88 constellations, which were chosen essentially arbitrarily, based largely on historically significant apparent groupings of stars.

Stars in a constellation superficially look to us as though they're near each other, but they may be very different distances from us, because we see the night sky as two-dimensional.

For example, one of the furthest stars visible to the naked eye is over 16,000 light years away, called V762 Cas in the constellation Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia also contains many other stars that are much closer to us, such as Eta Cassiopeiae which is just 19.4 light years away, practically a next-door neighbor.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#183

Post by CryptoPunk » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 6:53 AM UTC

goto11 wrote: post #128

CryptoPunk wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trolls, in Scandinavian folklore, also fit the profile of neanderthals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll

How so?

The speech portions of the brain were smaller in Neanderthals, which would have made them appear dimwitted to humans, which is how trolls are often depicted in folklore.

They are known to have lived in smaller social groups than humans, and trolls are depicted as living in small groups as well.

Neanderthals were larger than humans, and trolls are similarly depicted as large.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#184

Post by jelliclesfarm » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:25 AM UTC

mssundaram wrote: post #132

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #124

In Indian astrology, the lunar mansion of Krittika is the same as Pleiades. In Vedic astrology, there are 12 houses and 27 lunar mansions or nakshatras. They are the daughters of Daksha, one of the progenitors of humans. He was also responsible for the procreation of the universe, stars, gods, demons and all things living. The world is born and destroyed again and again. One day of the creator is one epoch. When he c…

Thank you for sharing. Also Murugan comes from the Pleiades, thus his name Kartikeya

The Muruga archetype along with the Krittika/Pleiades mythology helps me remember how to decode the nakshatra in a birth chart.

for example, i will always look for themes like fostering/IVF/sperm donation/adoption/caesarian etc if there is a prominent or strong krittika ..especially in the first pada of 13 degrees 20' of aries. also in taurus but it would be slightly different as taurus is venus ruled rather than mars ruled aries and hence the significations change entirely.

thats just an example of how mythology and archetype patterning can help like a mnemonic device. however, why it is always accurate is something i haven't been able to crack yet. but that's a different topic.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#185

Post by mcv » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #134

generalizations wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was an interesting read. Thanks. I'm not sure how the linked article expresses more than an alternate translation, though. It says that benei doesn't "necessarily" translate to sons, which doesn't rule out the translation but merely suggests an alternative. The word elokim also refers generally to God, as it says, but can be translated differently. It's an interesting alternative, but the claim that the translat…

> how it even does reenforce that idea. It reinforces “Christ as the son of God” because, if the phrase is translated as “sons of God”, that sets a precedent in the Old Testament that God has sons. The Jews do not believe God has sons. Christians do. So it is in the best interest of Christian translators to translate that phrase as “sons of God”. > but the claim that the translation "sons of god" is specifically wron…

That's completely missing the point of Christianity: Christ does not require a precedent; he's considered God's "only begotten son", which sounds like an explicit denial that there has been a precedent like him. Considering some mysterious people mentioned in a single line in Genesis as being of similar stature as Christ also goes against the idea of Christ as part of the Trinity.

Also, Christianity considers all people to be children of God (though apparently not "begotten"). On top of that, almost every Christian interpretation of the Bible seems to skip over that mention of the nephilim like it's not there. There's far more reason for Christianity to argue against translating this as "sons of God" than for it.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#186

Post by sebmellen » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

sradman wrote: post #58

The Pleiades[1], also known as the Seven Sisters: > It is among the star clusters nearest to Earth... and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. Only six stars in the cluster are visible to the naked eye yet mythology from several ancient cultures share the idea that one of the seven “sisters" is hidden. The article The world’s oldest story? , originally published in TheConversation [2], state…

Our ancestors could well have seen these 7 stars up to 100 kya. Indigenous Australians probably have eyesight most similar to our hunter gatherer ancestors, at 6:14 (approx. 20:46), much better than ours.

Quoting from an article on their eyesight:

> As an example of how extraordinary the vision can be, Professor Taylor recounted how astronomers were looking at records from the 1840s into Aboriginal descriptions of constellations of stars.

> "The astronomers just couldn't work out how these constellations worked," he said.

> "They talked to me then they went back with binoculars and suddenly they could pick out all the missing stars that the Aboriginal people could see just with the naked eye."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-08/prince-harry-may-stru...

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#187

Post by MichaelMoser123 » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:50 AM UTC

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #174

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tigosmIryU Prof. Martin Sweatman says that the paintings in Göbekli Tepe depicts the fall of a meteorite that caused the younger dryas cooling/ice age. now this calamity occured much earlier than the construction of Göbekli Tepe - but he infers that the paintings refer to the constellation of the stars at the time when the meteorite came down. Another example of palaeoastronomy in act…

i was thinking: maybe the story of Lot in the Bible (Genesis 18-19) is referring to the same story - a great city destroyed by heavenly fire for its sins would be quite similar to the story that resulted in the religion of Göbekli Tepe.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#188

Post by mssundaram » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:28 AM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #184

mssundaram wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing. Also Murugan comes from the Pleiades, thus his name Kartikeya

The Muruga archetype along with the Krittika/Pleiades mythology helps me remember how to decode the nakshatra in a birth chart. for example, i will always look for themes like fostering/IVF/sperm donation/adoption/caesarian etc if there is a prominent or strong krittika ..especially in the first pada of 13 degrees 20' of aries. also in taurus but it would be slightly different as taurus is venus ruled rather than mar…

Very interesting regarding a strong krittika. Do you offer readings?

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#189

Post by permille42 » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:36 AM UTC

Recorded history only goes back to 2600 BC.

TLDR summary of article: Plain observation only shows 6 stars not 7 because the 7th is quite dim and close to one of the other stars. 100k years ago it would have been further away from the others. Therefore the story must have originated 100k years ago.

Bollocks and bullshit.

Re: ‘Seven Sisters’ Myths May Reach Back 100k Years

#190

Post by stareatgoats » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 8:40 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #160

stareatgoats wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAICT, the Greek pantheon (Hercules etc) is commonly assumed to belong to a religious belief system that in large part aligns with the spread of the Indo-European language, probably (maybe) originating with the Yamnaya culture on the Pontic steppe north of the Black sea according to what is called the Kurgan hypothesis [0][1]. The culture and language seems to have spread across large parts of the Indo-European land…

Only a quite small number of the Greek pantheon have Indo-European forebears and were brought to Greece with the expansion of the Indo-European languages from the Pontic Steppes. Most of the Greek deities derive from the non-Indo-European autochthonous culture of Greece, or from interaction with the Greeks’ neighbors in Anatolian. Your own linked article emphasizes this: "Despite the popularity of Greek mythology in…

Well, 'similar' and 'dissimilar' are elastic concepts, and as the pantheons mentioned are certainly not 'the same' there is much room for interpretation, where different schools tend to stress the difference more than the similarity or vice versa. But there are sufficient common characteristics to trace a lineage in all of them, albeit certainly intermixed with other influences.

In the specific case of the Greek mythology, these deities have distinct Indo-European parallels: Zeus (Dyēus, Sky Father), Eos (H₂éusōs, Dawn goddess), Helios (Seh₂ul, Sun god), Castor and Pollux ( Divine Horse Twins), and more, enough to at least put central tenets of Greek pantheon largely within the realm of the Indo-European tradition.

The cited quote in isolation gives an incorrect impression in this context.